To be irritated about DP and the tunnel?

[RockHardCake]

DP (we don’t live together) has just moved into a new house. It’s in a right state, needs ridiculous amounts of work doing to it including a whole new heating system (currently just has coal fires in each room!) new bathrooms (of which there are 3) and roofing repairs etc etc - he kind of inherited it but not completely, he has had to pay for it but at a daft price. It’s a listed building with land, pretty isolated.

Anyway! He’s been in there a few weeks and found a tunnel in the basement that was bricked up but the bricks had began to fall apart which is how the tunnel came to light. I found this fascinating and asked where it led and he said he didn’t know. I asked “did you not go in it??” And he said “no, it won’t be anything excited”. Why would you not go in it?? I’m desperate to know where it leads!! I’ve asked him a few times to have a look and he said he has more important things to be doing - I can’t get my head around it!!

im staying there at weekend and I said I’m going to explore the tunnel - he rolled his eyes and said “ffs can you stop fascinating over that stupid tunnel?”

it’s making me quite annoyed

All I’m going to say is you had better come back and tell us about it! :-)

this is ripe to become the safe thread all over again.

My late PILs used to live in a 15th century house next to the village church. Very firm local lore said that there had been a tunnel between their house and the church. Possibly dating from priest hole days. This also tied in with some medieval wall paintings in the house where the faces had all been chipped off/obliterated. It's thought the paintings were of Catholic saints which is why the faces might have been rubbed out during Reformation times.

Anyway, FIL restored this house and we worked out that the most likely place for a tunnel entrance would be in what was now a downstairs bathroom in the corner of the house nearest the church. DH and I were super keen to investigate but FIL forbade anyone to knock down walls looking for tunnel entrances!

If I were you, OP, I'd be fascinated by that tunnel too! Does anyone local know any history about the house?

Ooh, there was an old thread where a poster mentioned her home - quite nonchalantly - and it sounded just like a real-life Smuggler's Top!

I can't remember which thread it was - I don't think the thread was particularly about amazingly cool old places on the whole.

I wonder if this thread has lured her out and she's on here as I write?! I'm with you, OP: how could you be so meh about it and not want to investigate a secret tunnel on your own property? The number of exciting dreams I've had, where I've discovered hidden rooms and tunnels, and then woken up to disappointment; when it's actually true in real life, how could you just dismiss it and not be itching to explore?!

As an aside, I'd love to know if Enid Blyton plucked Smuggler's Top out of her imagination - or did she get inspiration for it from an actual ancient building/town? Maybe we'll never know

Can I just say how thrilled I am to have discovered that this thread has written cheques that it very much can cash?!

I almost ignored it and assumed it was probably a travel one, with DP irrationally scared about going to France via Eurotunnel!

I'd be in there for an explore like a rat up a drainpipe 😂

You described it as a big house, I wonder if the tunnel leads to an ice-house, maybe? A house near us has one, a big underground cavern where ice would be brought in winter (chipped off a glacier and floated down to Britain).

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/london-archaeologists-unearth-subterranean-georgian-ice-store-180971146/

My first LTB. No-one needs that sort of negativity in their lives. Find someone less dull who will explore your tunnel.

DP clearly never read Enid Blyton.
should be fairly obvious if its a people tunnel or a drainage tunnel. Does it lead away from the house? Are there significant cellars anyway? It might be a root cellar or ice cellar. Oooooh, why would it be bricked up? What were they keeping in?or out?
can we have photos and a full reveal?
My old office building had a tunnel running through the cellars - bricked off. Apparently these tunnels run all round the city - I was desperate to start pulling bricks out.

I won’t even go in cellars, let alone tunnels </coward>.

I’d be asking for a surveyor to have a look at it though!

Please could you tell us which area of the UK it is in?

Scotland - JACOBITE?

near any of the coast - smuggling maybe?

Tin mine?

Yes agreed it could be ice storage?

How old are the bricks blocking it up?

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2024-03-05/couple-goes-viral-on-tiktok-after-finding-air-raid-shelter-under-home-garden#

This was on TV news recently.

More pics
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13137195/Tunnel-vision-Moment-mother-finds-secret-underground-passageway-air-raid-shelter-dating-WWII-buried-paving-slab-garden-bored-lockdown.html

That gave me a right laugh 😆

Yes could be an ice house.
ice was shipped from somewhere cold and stored underground for use through the summer.

What on earth is a priest hole?!

East Yorkshire
not sure about the age of the bricks though, they don’t look as old as the house though

It’s not just a room, he’s shone a torch in it and it’s a passageway that seems do go on for quite some distance (he couldn’t see the end of it from the entrance)

Make sure you wear a hard hat! Hope you find something interesting :)

I agree OP, I want to know where it goes! Update us at the weekend!

Quite

You know animals need food right? It’s only in Indiana Jones films that vast numbers of them turn up in rooms that have been sealed for centuries!

A place Catholic families hid priests to protect them in Reformation England.

Where Catholic priests hid so they and the family they were hiding with wouldn't be murdered by the State for being Catholic.

Is that a euphemism? 😏

You definitely need to borrow a drone (or the Mars rover) so you don't put yourself in danger from in caving in --or being eaten by zombies or whatever has been hiding in there for the past 300+ years).